tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/land-use-politics-25035/articlesLand use politics – The Conversation2019-03-10T19:22:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1131722019-03-10T19:22:48Z2019-03-10T19:22:48ZTo reduce fire risk and meet climate targets, over 300 scientists call for stronger land clearing laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262837/original/file-20190308-150700-3qu1wc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Without significant tree cover, dry and dusty landscapes can result.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Don Driscoll</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-is-a-global-top-ten-deforester-and-queensland-is-leading-the-way-87259">high rates of forest loss</a> and weakening land clearing laws are increasing bushfire risk, and undermining our ability to meet national targets aimed at curbing climate change.</p>
<p>This dire situation is why we are among the more than 300 scientists and practitioners who have signed a <a href="https://www.ecolsoc.org.au/scientists-declaration-strong-legislation-needed-curb-australias-accelerating-rate-land-clearing">declaration</a> calling for governments to restore, or better strengthen regulations to protect native vegetation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/land-clearing-on-the-rise-as-legal-thinning-proves-far-from-clear-cut-79419">Land clearing on the rise as legal 'thinning' proves far from clear-cut</a>
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<p>Land clearing laws have been contentious in several states for years. New South Wales <a href="https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/vegetation/">relaxed its land clearing controls</a> in 2017, triggering concerns over irreversible environmental damage. Although it is too early to know the impact of those changes, a <a href="https://www.wwf.org.au/ArticleDocuments/546/pub-bulldozing-of-bushland-nearly-triples-around-moree-and-collarenebri-after-safeguards-repealed-in-nsw-sep18.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y">recent analysis</a> found that land clearing has increased sharply in some areas since the laws changed.</p>
<p>The Queensland Labor government’s 2018 <a href="https://www.dnrme.qld.gov.au/land-water/initiatives/vegetation-management-laws">strengthening</a> of land clearing laws came after years of systematic <a href="https://theconversation.com/land-clearing-in-queensland-triples-after-policy-ping-pong-38279">weakening of these protections</a>. Yet the issue has remained politically divisive. While discussing a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Standing_Committee_on_Agriculture_and_Water_Resources/Landpolicyimpacts">federal inquiry</a> into the impact of these policies on farmers, federal agriculture minister David Littleproud <a href="https://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/5799021/littleproud-launches-qld-bushfire-inquiry/">suggested</a> that the strenthening of regulations may have worsened Queensland’s December bushfires.</p>
<p>We argue such an assertion is at odds with scientific evidence. And, while the conservation issues associated with widespread land clearing are generally well understood by the public, the consequences for farmers and fire risks are much less so.</p>
<h2>Tree loss can increase fire risk</h2>
<p>During December’s heatwave in northern Queensland, some regions were at “catastrophic” bushfire risk for the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/04/bushfires-tropics-queensland-terrifying-new-reality-cyclones-flooding">first time since ratings began</a>. Even normally wet rainforests, such as at Eungella National Park inland from Mackay, sustained burns in some areas during “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-04/eungella-rainforest-future-questioned-by-expert/10578802">unprecedented</a>” fire conditions.</p>
<p>There is no evidence to support the suggestion that 2018’s <a href="https://www.dnrme.qld.gov.au/land-water/initiatives/vegetation-management-laws">land clearing law</a> changes contributed to the fires. No changes were made to how vegetation can be managed to reduce fire risk. This is governed under separate laws, which remained unaltered.</p>
<p>In fact, shortly after the fires, Queensland’s land clearing figures were released. They showed that in the <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0031/91876/landcover-change-in-queensland-2016-17-and-2017-18.pdf">three years to June 2018</a>, an area equivalent to roughly 570,000 Melbourne Cricket Grounds (1,138,000 hectares) of bushland was cleared, including 284,000 hectares of remnant (old-growth) ecosystems.</p>
<p>Tree clearing can worsen fire risk in several ways. It can affect the <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2007GL031524">regional climate</a>. In parts of eastern Australia, tree cover reductions are estimated to have increased summer surface temperatures by up to 2℃ and southwest Western Australia by 0.4–0.8℃, reduced rainfall in southeast Australia, and made droughts <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2009GL037666">hotter and longer</a>.</p>
<p>Removing forest vegetation depletes soil moisture. Large, intact areas of forest typically have cooler, wetter microclimates buffered from extreme temperatures. Over time, some forest types can even <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/15887">become fire-resistant</a>, but smaller patches of trees are typically drier and more flammable.</p>
<p>Trees also form a natural windbreak that can slow the spread of bushfires. An <a href="https://safecom-files.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/current/docs/analysis_of_farming_practices_on_bushfire_risk_and_prevention_december_2008.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3Danalysis_of_farming_practices_on_bushfire_risk_and_prevention_december_2008.pdf&amp;X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&amp;X-Amz-Date=20190308T012554Z&amp;X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&amp;X-Amz-Expires=900&amp;X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJQ4Q62CAGOAFH3RA%2F20190308%2Fap-southeast-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&amp;X-Amz-Signature=53338aae7d9778adc0c9575819bd8076f2da41c828fa8c7bd31e96aea00a689f">analysis</a> of the 2005 Wangary fire in South Australia found that fires spread most rapidly through paddocks, rather than through areas lined with native trees.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262851/original/file-20190308-150706-h07xe2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262851/original/file-20190308-150706-h07xe2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262851/original/file-20190308-150706-h07xe2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=423&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262851/original/file-20190308-150706-h07xe2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=423&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262851/original/file-20190308-150706-h07xe2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=423&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262851/original/file-20190308-150706-h07xe2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=531&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262851/original/file-20190308-150706-h07xe2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=531&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262851/original/file-20190308-150706-h07xe2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=531&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Trends from 1978 to 2017 in the annual (July to June) sum of the daily Forest Fire Danger Index, an indicator of the severity of fire weather conditions. Positive trends, shown in the yellow to red colours, indicate increasing length and intensity of the fire weather season. Areas where there are sparse data coverage, such as central parts of Western Australia, are faded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology/State of the Climate 2018</span></span>
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<p>Finally, Australia’s increasing risk of bushfire and worsening drought are <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-01/why-qld-bushfires-have-been-described-as-abnormal-unprecedented/10571122">driven by global climate change</a>, to which land clearing is a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01939.x">major contributor</a>.</p>
<h2>Farmers on the frontline of environmental risk</h2>
<p>Extensive tree clearing also leads to problems for farmers, including rising <a href="http://www.waterquality.gov.au/issues/salinity">salinity, reduced water quality</a>, and <a href="https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/australia%E2%80%99s-land-clearing-rate-once-again-among-highest-world">soil erosion</a>. Governments and rural communities spend significant money and labour redressing the aftermath of excessive clearing.</p>
<p>Sensible regulation of native vegetation removal does not restrict existing agriculture, but rather seeks to support sustainable production. Retained trees can help deal with many environmental risks that hamper <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00049158.2012.10676402">agricultural productivity</a>, including animal health, long-term pasture productivity, risks to the water cycle, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/08/13/4292535.htm">pest control</a>, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0070-8">human well-being</a>.</p>
<p>Rampant tree clearing is undoing climate policy too. Much of the federal government’s A$2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund has gone towards tree planting. But it would take almost this entire sum just to replace the trees <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/land/management/mapping/statewide-monitoring/slats/slats-reports">cleared in Queensland since 2012</a>.</p>
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<a href="http://theconversation.com/stopping-land-clearing-and-replanting-trees-could-help-keep-australia-cool-in-a-warmer-future-63654">Stopping land clearing and replanting trees could help keep Australia cool in a warmer future</a>
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<p>In 2019, Australians might reasonably expect that our relatively wealthy and well-educated country has moved beyond a frontier-style reliance on continued deforestation, and we would do well to better acknowledge and <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-dark-emu-and-the-blindness-of-australian-agriculture-97444">learn lessons from Indigenous Australians</a> with respect to their land management practices. </p>
<p>Yet the periodic weakening of land clearing laws in many parts of Australia has <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.12189">accelerated the problem</a>. The negative impacts on industry, society and wildlife are numerous and <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/PC/PC17001">well established</a>. They should not be ignored.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113172/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martine Maron receives funding from a range of sources including the Australian Research Council, the National Environmental Science Program&#39;s Threatened Species Recovery Hub, the Science for Nature and People Partnership, and The New South Wales Environment Trust. She provides advice to several State and Federal government environment agencies as well as WWF-Australia, is a Director of BirdLife Australia, and is a member of the Ecological Society of Austrralia&#39;s Academic Freedom Working Group, the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers and Thinkers, and two threatened species recovery teams.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Griffin receives funding from a range of organisations, private foundations and local governments, including the Australian Research Council, the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment, the Tom Farrell Institute, the NSW Envrionmental Trust, the Australian Museum, and various local councils. These funds support her research in zoology. She has served as a member of Council of the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour, and currently serves as editor and associate editor for two scientific journals, Behavioral Ecology and Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>April Reside is a scientific advisor for the Black-throated Finch Recovery Team and is on Birdlife Australia&#39;s Research and Conservation Committee. In the past, April has received funding from the Regional NRM planning for climate change program, the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, and the NESP Threatened Species Recovery Hub.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Laurance receives funding from various scientific and philanthropic organisations. He is the director of the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science at James Cook University, and founded and directs ALERT--the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers &amp; Thinkers, a science-advocacy group that reaches 1-2 million readers weekly.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Don Driscoll receives funding from the Herman Slade Foundation, OEH NSW Environmental Grants program, DELWP Vic, and Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. He is President of the Ecological Society of Australia, Director of the Centre of Integrative Ecology and Director of TechnEcology at Deakin University. Don is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and Society for Conservation Biology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council, The Australia and Pacific Science Foundation, The Hermon Slade Foundation, Australian Geographic, and Parks Victoria. Euan Ritchie is a Director (Media Working Group) of the Ecological Society of Australia, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Turton has previously received funding from the Australian Government. Steve is a Director of Terrain (Wet Tropics) Natural Resource Management Ltd, Independent Chair of the Wet Tropics Healthy Waterways Partnership, and Chair of the National Committee for Geographical Sciences (Australian Academy of Science).</span></em></p>A new petition is urging state and federal governments to rein in Australia's rampant land clearing, which worsens the risk of bushfires and threatens to undo the work of the Emissions Reduction Fund.Martine Maron, ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor of Environmental Management, The University of QueenslandAndrea Griffin, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, University of NewcastleApril Reside, Researcher, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of QueenslandBill Laurance, Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook UniversityDon Driscoll, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin UniversityEuan Ritchie, Associate Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin UniversitySteve Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography, CQUniversity AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1021162018-08-28T20:20:22Z2018-08-28T20:20:22ZHow Brazil can beat the odds and restore a huge swathe of the Amazon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233847/original/file-20180828-75978-1hczeuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soybean farms surrounded the Wawi Indigenous Territory in the Southeast Amazon.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rogério Assis/ Instituto Socioambiental</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past few decades the international community has watched as the destruction of Earth’s largest forest has intensified. Deforestation has been eating away at the Amazon’s fringes, mainly for commercial cattle ranching and agricultural plantation. The agriculture, livestock, mining and infrastructure sectors have been promoted due to powerful financial and development pressures for high profits and economic growth. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, indigenous peoples, traditional communities and smallholders have had their livelihoods imperilled, while carbon emissions have increased, water quality and quantity have declined, forest fires have increased, and wildlife has been lost.</p>
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<a href="http://theconversation.com/the-world-protests-as-amazon-forests-are-opened-to-mining-83034">The world protests as Amazon forests are opened to mining</a>
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<p>Although <a href="https://www3.socioambiental.org/geo/RAISGMapaOnline/">almost 40% of the Brazilian Amazon</a> is conserved by protected areas and indigenous lands, some 428,721 sq km – an area the size of Sweden – has <a href="http://www.obt.inpe.br/prodes/dashboard/prodes-rates.html#">been deforested</a> over the past three decades.</p>
<p>As part of its <a href="http://www4.unfccc.int/ndcregistry/PublishedDocuments/Brazil%20First/BRAZIL%20iNDC%20english%20FINAL.pdf">international climate targets</a>, Brazil’s government has pledged to restore <a href="https://assets.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/paris-climate-agreement-progress-2017-brazil-ib.pdf">more than 12 million hectares</a> of native vegetation by 2030, including 4.8 million hectares (48,000 sq km) in the Amazon. </p>
<p>The scale of this target has catapulted restoration ecology from an academic discipline to the forefront of international debates about how conservation goals can be delivered alongside economic, human, and social interests.</p>
<p>Brazil has established a range of national policies, programs and commissions to pursue the target. At the 2017 UN climate summit in Bonn, the Brazilian government announced the creation of a <a href="https://www.bndes.gov.br/SiteBNDES/bndes/bndes_en/Institucional/Press/Noticias/2017/20171117_bndes_amazon.html">US$60 million Amazon Fund</a> for restoration projects. The fundraising is mostly supported by <a href="http://www.amazonfund.gov.br/en/donations/">international donations</a> from the Norway Government for the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases from deforestation.</p>
<p>But the main problem is that Brazil’s current conservation capabilities are far short of what is needed to meet its ambitious goals. Long-term programs and policies to restore the Amazon have habitually fallen prey to short-term political interests.</p>
<p>For years, a coalition of landowners and economic players have lobbied to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cobi.12298">reduce protected areas</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/23/brazils-indigenous-groups-battle-land-law-change">attack indigenous land rights</a>, and <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/344/6182/363.summary">weaken restoration regulations</a>. Another barrier is the land tenure in the Amazon, the region’s colonisation history, and a lack of ownership structures that enables illegal land-grabbing.</p>
<p>Small-scale restoration programs that have enjoyed success on a trial basis have rarely been successfully scaled up, because they generally ignore the need to deliver improvements to local livelihoods as well as to the rainforest itself.
All too often, these programs are conceived and implemented by universities, research agencies, companies and non-governmental organisations, rather than in a community approach with smallholders, indigenous peoples and traditional communities.</p>
<p>Another issue is the region’s poor infrastructure, and its lack of investments, technology innovation and business development for restoration. One of the main bottlenecks, for example, is the shortage of native seed and seedling supply. Successfully restoring forest requires hundreds of tonnes of native seed each year. Yet the seed supply system is expensive, technical, and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/plb.12842">highly regulated</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233848/original/file-20180828-75996-8d6yzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233848/original/file-20180828-75996-8d6yzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233848/original/file-20180828-75996-8d6yzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233848/original/file-20180828-75996-8d6yzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233848/original/file-20180828-75996-8d6yzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233848/original/file-20180828-75996-8d6yzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233848/original/file-20180828-75996-8d6yzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Settler farmer processing native seeds for restoration in the Southeast Amazon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tui AnandiInstituto Socioambiental</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>But native seed cultivation could represent a valuable source of income for local communities, boosting both conservation and the local economy. One successful emerging initiative, the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/environmental-conservation/article/tropical-forest-seeds-in-the-household-economy-effects-of-market-participation-among-three-sociocultural-groups-in-the-upper-xingu-region-of-the-brazilian-amazon/D36534C402134A3BDACF30C37FC5B5FE">Xingu Seeds Network</a> offers payments to indigenous people, settler farmers and urban seed collectors for the seeds they collect. This kind of initiative is hampered by seed policy which has neglected a vast network of informal seed collectors and producers who are largely ‘invisible’ to the regulatory authorities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/the-worlds-forests-will-collapse-if-we-dont-learn-to-say-no-53979">The world's forests will collapse if we don't learn to say 'no'</a>
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<p>To turn its ambitious targets into reality, Brazil needs to involve the Amazon’s local people in developing forest restoration policies, and then give them an incentive to take part. That means considering local knowledge, and providing socioeconomic opportunities rather than focusing solely on the forest itself.</p>
<p>This issue runs much deeper than mere forest restoration. It will necessitate revising Amazonian land tenure rules, to ensure a clear demarcation of indigenous lands and protected areas. And it calls for Brazil to make the Amazon rainforest’s values part of the economy, rather than being viewed as something that stands in the way of economic development. Doing that will help ensure that the Amazon, often nicknamed the “lungs of the planet”, survives to benefit all of humanity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danilo Ignacio de Urzedo receives a postgraduate scholarship from the School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Fisher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Brazil has set itself a target of restoring almost 50,000 sq km of the Amazon rainforest by 2030. But it won't get there without changing its policies and how it engages with local people.Danilo Ignacio de Urzedo, PhD candidate, University of SydneyRobert Fisher, Senior lecturer, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/933702018-03-16T02:09:46Z2018-03-16T02:09:46ZQueensland's new land clearing bill will help turn the tide, despite its flaws<p>Queensland’s Labor government this month <a href="http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/docs/find.aspx?id=5618T299">tabled a bill</a> to tighten the regulation of land clearing. Queensland is by far the worst offender in this area, following a <a href="https://theconversation.com/land-clearing-in-queensland-triples-after-policy-ping-pong-38279">litany of reversals</a> of vegetation protection. </p>
<p>After a period of tightened laws between 2004 and 2013, the <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/lnp-tree-clearing-plans-too-much-for-some-to-bear/news-story/0e8f037ac6ac726dcfafc3ea7363618e?sv=815b506775716cad78c1a1807e4f03ce&amp;nk=1de6ddc7068ac694859d93b9d69901f0-1520501178">Newman government set about unwinding</a> key reforms during its 2012-15 term. </p>
<p>Following these changes, land-clearing rates quadrupled to almost <a href="https://publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/land-cover-change-in-queensland-2015-16/resource/60a7902d-7a9d-49a7-90b1-a54686fbcef5">400,000 hectares per year</a>, to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/queensland-land-clearing-is-undermining-australias-environmental-progress-54882">dismay of conservationists</a>, with rising concern about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/search/result?sg=a3fd3b78-e107-45b6-8c82-adf0d45cb6ad&amp;sp=1&amp;sr=2&amp;url=%2Fland-clearing-isnt-just-about-trees-its-an-animal-welfare-issue-too-80398">impacts on wild animal welfare</a> and wider <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/pc/PC17001">ecological impacts</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/why-arent-australias-environment-laws-preventing-widespread-land-clearing-92924">Why aren't Australia's environment laws preventing widespread land clearing?</a>
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<p>The state’s Labor government, which retained power at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-wins-a-majority-in-queensland-as-polling-in-victoria-shows-a-tie-88692">November 2017 election</a>, made an <a href="https://www.queenslandlabor.org/media/20226/alpq-saving-habitat-policy-document-v3.pdf">election promise</a> to tighten vegetation management laws. However, the bill is likely to be fiercely debated after the parliamentary committee tables its report next month.</p>
<p>Although the bill promises a steep reduction in land clearing, albeit without any firm target, there is likely to be a significant gap between what the government has promised and what its legislation may deliver in reality.</p>
<p>To explain why, let’s look in more detail at <a href="http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Documents/TableOffice/TabledPapers/2018/5618T300.pdf">what the proposed legislation does</a>, as well as what it doesn’t do. </p>
<h2>High-value agriculture</h2>
<p>The 2013 amendments legalised the clearing of mature forest for large-scale crop-growing developments. The bill will once again ban it, fulfilling Labor’s election promise, but it remains a <a href="https://www.qff.org.au/media-releases/vegetation-management-tabled-parliament/">major point of friction with agriculturalists</a>. </p>
<p>This will not stop the roughly 114,000 hectares that have already been approved from being cleared. It would, however, stop any more approvals. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.wwf.org.au/ArticleDocuments/360/pub-briefing-bushland-destruction-in-queensland-since-laws-axed-9feb18.pdf.aspx">About 10% of clearing of mature forest</a> is due to high value agriculture approvals. </p>
<h2>Self-assessed clearing</h2>
<p>Up to <a href="http://www.wwf.org.au/ArticleDocuments/360/pub-briefing-bushland-destruction-in-queensland-since-laws-axed-9feb18.pdf.aspx">67% of clearing of regulated vegetation</a> is occurring under self-assessment provisions. No permit is required for this, provided that landowners follow the code and give notice of their plans. </p>
<p>Of this self-assessed clearing, about 60% is for “<a href="https://theconversation.com/land-clearing-on-the-rise-as-legal-thinning-proves-far-from-clear-cut-79419">thinning</a>”. The government has now recognised that “<a href="http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/tableOffice/BillMaterial/180308/Veg.pdf">thinning is not a low-risk activity</a>” and is removing the main provision that allows it, but is keeping some self-assessed thinning provisions, such as for advanced regrowth.</p>
<p>Other types of self-assessed clearing would continue, particularly the clearing of mulga forests for livestock fodder, albeit under a tighter code. This was a major concession to agricultural interests. </p>
<p>As the bill has not banned self-assessment outright, future land-clearing rates will ultimately depend on how stringent the new codes turn out to be in practice.</p>
<p>“Area Management Plans” are an older, parallel mechanism for allowing self-assessed clearing. Clearing under these plans accounts for up to <a href="http://www.wwf.org.au/ArticleDocuments/360/pub-briefing-bushland-destruction-in-queensland-since-laws-axed-9feb18.pdf.aspx">38% of clearing of regulated vegetation</a>. The new legislation would phase out existing plans, but would retain a provision to make new area plans, including for thinning.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210252/original/file-20180314-113452-1nilfkl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210252/original/file-20180314-113452-1nilfkl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210252/original/file-20180314-113452-1nilfkl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=410&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210252/original/file-20180314-113452-1nilfkl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=410&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210252/original/file-20180314-113452-1nilfkl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=410&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210252/original/file-20180314-113452-1nilfkl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=516&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210252/original/file-20180314-113452-1nilfkl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=516&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210252/original/file-20180314-113452-1nilfkl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=516&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Google satellite image of remnant forest that was legally thinned under a self-assessable code in 2015. The top half shows intact forest, and the lower half thinned forest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WWF-Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Regrowth</h2>
<p>The government promised to protect “high conservation value regrowth”. This includes threatened ecosystems and species habitats that are needed for recovery. The new law would expand these definitions to regulate clearing of regrowing forests older than 15 years, and of regrowth alongside streams in all Great Barrier Reef catchments, not just the northern ones as at present. </p>
<p>This will bring more than a million hectares that are currently exempt under regulatory control, a major step forward. However, the bill excludes regrowth that has been “locked in” as exempt on property maps. Clearing of regulated regrowth may also still proceed under a <a href="https://publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/self-assessable-vegetation-clearing-codes/resource/130fed64-cc49-4752-ac2d-de24fe86f082">new self-assessable code</a>, which apparently lacks protections for endangered species habitats or ecosystems.</p>
<h2>Exemptions</h2>
<p>Exemptions pose a major stumbling block to the government’s <a href="https://www.queenslandlabor.org/media/20226/alpq-saving-habitat-policy-document-v3.pdf">promise</a> to “protect remnant and high conservation value regrowth”. An area currently exempt on a regulatory map can be reclassified, and the government plans to do this for more than 1 million hectares of high conservation value regrowth. However, areas that have been “certified exempt” on a property map cannot be reversed – this represents 23 million hectares (13% of the state’s area). The government has reaffirmed its <a href="http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/tableOffice/BillMaterial/180308/Veg.pdf">commitment</a> not to reverse these exempt areas.</p>
<p>What’s more, the bill allows ongoing locking in of exemptions. This is a significant issue because more than 60% of all tree clearing is exempt. Most of this is in already locked-in areas, and <a href="http://www.wwf.org.au/ArticleDocuments/360/pub-briefing-bushland-destruction-in-queensland-since-laws-axed-9feb18.pdf.aspx">a large fraction includes advanced regrowth of high conservation importance</a>. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen how much the A$500 million <a href="https://www.queenslandlabor.org/media/20226/alpq-saving-habitat-policy-document-v3.pdf">Land Restoration Fund</a> will protect these locked-in areas.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/land-clearing-isnt-just-about-trees-its-an-animal-welfare-issue-too-80398">Land clearing isn't just about trees – it's an animal welfare issue too</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In light of these loopholes and exemptions, the new law looks set to fall short of what the Queensland government has promised. This is primarily due to ongoing reliance on self-assessed clearing and exempt areas. However, the proposed legislation and funding together should go some way towards turning around Queensland’s soaring land-clearing rates.</p>
<p>Tree clearing will continue to be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-better-policy-to-end-the-alarming-increase-in-land-clearing-63507">hotly contested policy space</a>, and not just in Queensland. New South Wales recently trod the same path, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nsw-government-is-choosing-to-undermine-native-vegetation-and-biodiversity-59066">placing a heavily reliance on self-assessed codes</a>. These were recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/09/laws-that-make-land-clearing-easier-ruled-invalid-by-nsw-court">challenged successfully</a> in court. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/09/landmark-case-challenges-land-clearing-based-on-climate-change-impact">A similar challenge</a> is under way in the Northern Territory, citing the greenhouse emissions caused by a large-scale clearing approval. </p>
<p>The federal opposition has <a href="https://www.tonyburke.com.au/media-releases/2017/10/23/media-release-land-clearing-in-australia-is-hurting-the-reef-senate-estimates">also pledged</a> to tighten land-clearing controls in national legislation. The tide may well be turning, albeit only slowly so far.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The authors acknowledge the contribution of Dr Martin Taylor, Protected Areas and Conservation Science Manager at WWF-Australia and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at The University of Queensland.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Cosgrove receives funding from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Australian Government&#39;s National Environmental Science Program&#39;s Threatened Species Recovery Hub. She is a member of the Black-throated Finch Recovery Team, BirdLife Australia and The Wilderness Society. She volunteers with BirdLife Australia. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>April Reside receives funding from NESP Threatened Species Recovery Hub. She is a scientific advisor for the Black-throated Finch Recovery Team and is on Birdlife Australia&#39;s Research and Conservation Committee and Threatened Species Committee.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Watson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Alongside his position at the University of Queensland, he is the Director of Science and Research Initiative at the Wildlife Conservation Society. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martine Maron receives funding from The Australian Research Council and the Australian Government&#39;s National Environmental Science Program&#39;s Threatened Species Recovery Hub. She is Vice-President of BirdLife Australia and Governor of WWF-Australia.</span></em></p>Queensland's new draft land-clearing laws aim to put the brakes on years of environmental destruction. But the bill contains several loopholes that are likely to stymie progress.Anita J Cosgrove, Senior Research Assistant in the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of QueenslandApril Reside, Researcher, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of QueenslandJames Watson, Professor, The University of QueenslandMartine Maron, ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor of Environmental Management, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/734422017-02-28T01:40:05Z2017-02-28T01:40:05ZAirport privatisations have put profit before public safety and good planning<p>The <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-21/five-passenger-plane-crashes-near-melbournes-essendon-airport/8288964">plane crash at Essendon Airport</a> last week shows the folly of allowing runways to co-exist with commercial development. Tullamarine Airport opened in 1970 partly because of the risk to housing from aircraft at Essendon. Why, then, have authorities <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-22/plane-crash-at-essendon-shopping-centre-a-tragic-mess/8290906">allowed extensive new development</a> within Essendon Airport’s boundaries between housing and runways?</p>
<p>Between 1997 and 2003, the federal government <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222526911_The_privatisation_of_Australia's_airports">provided 99-year airport leases</a> to private consortia, raising A$8.5 billion. This process illustrates how privatisation can lead to unaccountable incremental actions and impacts that public authorities didn’t anticipate.</p>
<p>Since then, in effect, lessees have enjoyed the privileged position in Australian planning law of being able to decide their own futures. The exclusion of such large areas as airports from broader metropolitan planning threatens orderly planning on a grand scale. </p>
<p>Planning academics Robert Freestone and Douglas Baker <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/34167/1/c34167.pdf">have argued</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The prospect of market opportunities from property development and commercial initiatives was a key factor in the high prices secured for airport leases.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This process was compromised if higher prices than those justified by leases were reciprocated by commercial approvals. Any future development assessment would be predetermined towards approval. This would prevent fair consideration of objections, resulting in a lack of proper scrutiny in the public interest.</p>
<h2>Airport business is booming</h2>
<p>Commercial development is now integrated with traditional airport operations across Australia. But aside from possible reciprocal financial expectations, privatisation has provided extraordinary bargains to lessees through large capital and operational returns.</p>
<p>Linfox Group and Beck Corporation, for example, made a reported payment in 2001 of $22 million for a lease on 305 hectares of prime inner-urban land at Essendon Airport. They have turned this into a <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjdwLHB8a7SAhVFebwKHRNWD9QQFggbMAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Freal-estate%2Fessendon-fields-beck-fox-22m-lease-turns-into-1b-property-in-15-years-20161115-gspxxk&amp;usg=AFQjCNFoj9uQR16gW9w2iMSzo7m5oH0XGA&amp;bvm=bv.148073327,d.dGc">projected $1 billion enterprise</a> over the next decade. One-quarter of the airport is leased to commercial tenants. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158481/original/image-20170227-27393-km5m3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158481/original/image-20170227-27393-km5m3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158481/original/image-20170227-27393-km5m3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=619&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158481/original/image-20170227-27393-km5m3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=619&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158481/original/image-20170227-27393-km5m3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=619&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158481/original/image-20170227-27393-km5m3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=778&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158481/original/image-20170227-27393-km5m3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=778&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158481/original/image-20170227-27393-km5m3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=778&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Essendon is now the largest corporate jet base in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/awilson154/16604314516">Alec Wilson/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Business zones adjoin or wrap around runways. The plane crashed into a large retail DFO complex. An eight-storey 150-bed hotel, conference centre, a five-storey office block, private hospital, supermarket, auto centre and much else have also been built or are planned. Projected employment in the precinct is 18,000. </p>
<p>Air traffic has expanded significantly too. Essendon is home to executive air, charter, freight, media and regional air services, air ambulance, police and private aircraft. Essendon is Australia’s largest corporate jet base.</p>
<p>All this activity reinforces the public danger from the incompatibility of air and commercial land uses under privatised governance arrangements.</p>
<h2>Operators bypass state planning rules</h2>
<p>Under the Airports Act, Essendon Airports Pty Ltd must prepare a management plan outlining airport development for 20 years. The privatised management of airports inherited the Commonwealth’s constitutional overriding of state and territory land-use planning provisions. Master plans must only address “consistency” with state and local planning schemes. </p>
<p>However, airport lessees are not required to act on submissions. Essendon Airport Pty Ltd gave “due regard to all written comments”, then forwarded submissions and its <a href="http://www.essendonairport.com.au/planning/masterplan">master plan</a> to the federal government. The Commonwealth approved the plan in 2014 regardless of broader urban planning considerations. </p>
<p>Victorian government planning policy has attempted to concentrate commercial development in mixed-use centres well served by public transport. Essendon Airport is a classic road-based, out-of-centre location. It was not identified as an activity centre in Melbourne metropolitan planning. But, for 30 years, no Victorian government has shown an appetite for curbing out-of-centre development.</p>
<p>The 2014 metropolitan plan, <a href="http://www.planmelbourne.vic.gov.au/Plan-Melbourne">Plan Melbourne</a>, proposed to “investigate opportunities for … increased development and employment” at Essendon. Airport management <a href="http://planmelbourne.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/294836/247-Macroplan-for-Essendon-Fields.pdf">submitted a case</a> to the revised metropolitan strategy process for recognition as an activity centre.</p>
<p>State and local authorities originally expressed concern at the proposal to construct the DFO at Essendon Airport. However, more recently, local and state attitudes have changed. </p>
<p>In 2014, the Liberal planning minister, Matthew Guy, announced a new airport employment precinct and a partnership between the developers, Metropolitan Planning Authority and state and local governments. The airport was identified as both a key transport gateway and important commercial area.</p>
<p>Labor Niddrie MP Ben Carroll also <a href="http://www.theweeklyreview.com.au/uncategorized/1798657-2-billion-development-of-essendon-fields-and-airport-west/">welcomed the expansion</a> of commercial activities. Moonee Valley Council expressed concerns but did not oppose the major proposed land uses. Councillors expressed the view that Essendon Fields is “<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/hotel-plans-for-airport-precinct-20130903-2t35w.html">an important economic hub</a>” and a “<a href="http://www.theweeklyreview.com.au/uncategorized/1798657-2-billion-development-of-essendon-fields-and-airport-west/">vibrant business precinct</a>”.</p>
<p>The then federal infrastructure minister, Warren Truss, <a href="http://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/wt/releases/2015/July/wt217_2015.aspx">said in 2015</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Airports are now business destinations in their own right and provide a powerful economic engine for their home region and local communities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In similar language, Essendon Airport Pty Ltd CEO Chris Cowan <a href="http://www.essendonairport.com.au/community/community-info-booklet">said</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Essendon Airport [provides] a unique opportunity to reinforce its activity centre function by realising non-aviation development potential. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Everybody is now speaking from the same script.</p>
<p>State and local policy has increasingly become aligned with the Commonwealth helping to further the private interests of airport operators at increasing risk to the public. </p>
<p>Instead, airport governance should redefine Commonwealth responsibilities to its citizens and be integrated with broader metropolitan planning. This ultimately may mean closing down airport operations at Essendon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Buxton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Airport operators enjoy the privileged position in Australian planning law of being able to decide their own futures. Their exemption from state planning rules threatens orderly planning and safety.Michael Buxton, Professor of Environment and Planning, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/590832016-05-23T02:22:02Z2016-05-23T02:22:02ZCoastal law shift from property rights to climate adaptation is a landmark reform<p>Coastal management in Australia is subject to competing interests and challenges. These range from land use and strategic planning issues to ecosystems preservation. Local councils are at the coalface as both key decision-makers and the first point of contact for communities. </p>
<p>Exacerbating these day-to-day challenges for councils are risks to property. A quantitative assessment undertaken by the then-Department of Climate Change in 2009 identified impacts of sea-level rise as a <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/adaptation/publications/climate-change-risks-australias-coasts">serious threat to property</a>. </p>
<p>In New South Wales, under scenarios of a 1.1-metre sea-level rise, risks of damage or inundation to residential housing alone affected tens of thousands of properties, potentially costing millions of dollars. The NSW 2009 sea-level rise policy (now repealed) saw coastal councils considering this future risk when developing coastal zone management plans. </p>
<p>These metrics, while important, say little of the wide-ranging benefits of a freely accessible coast. Going to the beach is a fundamental part of Australian identity; it’s a “<a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/beach">special place</a>” for Australians.</p>
<p>Local councils are most exposed to the issues and challenges of a changing coastline in which there are many interests. Councils are often the first decision-makers for local development, asset management and land-use and strategic planning. Increased coastal erosion, storm events, more frequent and severe flooding impacts and higher tides can and will make these regular functions of councils <a href="http://www.ga.gov.au/ausgeonews/ausgeonews201103/climate.jsp">more complicated</a>. </p>
<p>In this context, the tabling of the NSW <a href="https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/bills/Pages/bill-details.aspx?pk=3291">Coastal Management Bill</a> on May 3 marks the formalisation of Stage 2 of the most significant law reform to coastal management since the 1970s. The NSW <a href="http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/coasts/coastreforms-minister-speech-13nov14.pdf">state government says</a> that, by better integrating coastal management with land-use planning, the legislation offers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a modern, coherent coastal management framework that is responsive to current needs and future challenges. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Property rights hold sway</h2>
<p>Despite a prominent <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/climate-change-adaptation/report">focus on property values</a> when it comes to coastal management issues, including climate adaptation, evidence is emerging that residents are <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/events/the-small-changes-coastal-vulnerability-to-sea-level-rise/">attached to their property for more than financial reasons</a>. </p>
<p>Private property interests often take priority as councils attempt to balance competing interests. An example of this is ongoing litigation over a sandbag wall on Belongil Beach in Byron Bay.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123466/original/image-20160523-9520-qv1tf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123466/original/image-20160523-9520-qv1tf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123466/original/image-20160523-9520-qv1tf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=623&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123466/original/image-20160523-9520-qv1tf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=623&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123466/original/image-20160523-9520-qv1tf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=623&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123466/original/image-20160523-9520-qv1tf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=783&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123466/original/image-20160523-9520-qv1tf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=783&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123466/original/image-20160523-9520-qv1tf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=783&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With coastal defences failing, some councils are moving to policies of ‘planned retreat’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WAVES_EXPLODE_AGAINST_SEAWALL._CHICAGO,_IL._HOUSE_ON_LEFT_IS_THREATENED_BY_BEACH_EROSION._U.S._ARMY_CORPS_OF..._-_NARA_-_547114.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/Paul Sequeira, US EPA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a series of severe coastal storms in the 1970s, Byron Shire Council <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/byron-bay-mayor-jan-barham-vows-no-retreat-on-beach-barriers/story-e6frg6o6-1225778397737">adopted a policy of “planned retreat”</a>. The location of this small northern NSW community on the most easterly point of Australia means it is already exposed to coastal hazards. These will become more frequent and more severe under future climate scenarios.</p>
<p>The planned retreat policy set requirements for the future relocation of private property. Local property owners, particularly those with beachfront property, have <a href="http://www.byronnews.com.au/news/planned-retreat-comes-under-fire/261927/">vehemently opposed</a> the use of the policy to prevent coastal property protection. </p>
<p>In May 2009, a particularly severe coastal storm caused significant damage to private residential property and the beach. Beachfront property owners (the Vaughans) sought to reinstate council-approved sandbag protection works on their property. This sandbag wall had collapsed during the storm. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-5871.12170/abstract">Vaughans sued the council and the council sued the Vaughans</a>. This particular matter settled in February 2010 and the failed sandbag wall has been reinstated. </p>
<p>More recently, council plans to install a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-21/belongil-wall/6487246">permanent rock wall at the same location</a> ran into <a href="http://www.echo.net.au/2015/05/protest-planned-against-byron-councillors-rock-wall/">fierce opposition from the community</a>, for whom the public amenity of the beach is critical, and <a href="http://www.edonsw.org.au/positive_change_for_marine_life">legal challenges</a>. </p>
<p>This example highlights some critical aspects of coastal management:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>private property rights are deeply entrenched in Australian culture and legal systems</p></li>
<li><p>climate adaptation is easier when it comes to future development</p></li>
<li><p>recourse to litigation in protecting your property is much easier if you can afford it. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Climate adaptation planning, including planned retreat, can be more easily implemented for future development. There are <a href="http://www.esc.nsw.gov.au/inside-council/project-and-exhibitions/major-projects-and-works/coastal-projects/sea-level-rise">excellent examples of local government</a> in NSW providing landowners with a range of development options. </p>
<h2>NSW reforms weigh future risks</h2>
<p>Much of the coast of Australia, however, is already developed. The residential development includes <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicole_Gurran/publication/228634993_Planning_for_affordable_housing_in_coastal_sea_change_communities/links/00b4953c1e7805f410000000.pdf">affordable housing options</a>. To balance competing interests along the coast, all members of coastal communities must be considered. </p>
<p>To this end, the NSW bill, if passed, would <a href="http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/coasts/coastreforms-act.htm">lead to a new Coastal Management Act</a>, a new <a href="http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/coasts/coastal-management-sepp.pdf">Coastal Management State Environmental Planning Policy</a> and a <a href="http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/coasts/coastreforms-manual.htm">coastal management manual</a>. Together these advance a more forward-thinking coastal management response. This has a central focus on ecologically sustainable development that can better balance both the management of coastal hazards and the integrity of the coast. </p>
<p>Local councils will be responsible for implementing these new legal requirements. Under Part 3 of the Coastal Management Bill, councils will be required to monitor coastal hazards and to give effect to coastal management plans. It would appear this includes future sea-level rise.</p>
<p>As has been advocated in <a href="https://theconversation.com/coastal-communities-including-24-federal-seats-at-risk-demand-action-on-climate-threats-58764">numerous policy reports</a>, the councils can’t do this alone. They need assistance from the federal government as well as the state.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tayanah O&#39;Donnell undertakes research with the University of Canberra funded by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility and the ACT Government. She also the principal of PlaceAdapt Consulting.</span></em></p>Many properties are at risk from rising sea levels, with owners and councils at odds over the costs of defending these. NSW law reform may lead to more forward-looking climate change adaptation.Tayanah O'Donnell, Research Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/548862016-03-07T01:33:53Z2016-03-07T01:33:53ZDone like a chicken dinner: city fringes locked in battles over broiler farms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111886/original/image-20160218-1240-1diievu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=191%2C370%2C3374%2C1532&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">&#39;Chook farms ruin lives!&#39;. Australians consume a lot of cheap chicken, but not all of them appreciate an intensive chicken factory as a neighbour. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marco Amati</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Once upon a time, chicken was a luxury few could regularly afford. It was a rare meal reserved for special occasions. Yet since 1965 the per-capita annual consumption of chicken meat in Australia has <a href="http://www.chicken.org.au/files/_system/Image/Graphs/Consumption%20of%20meat.jpg?Production=Per+Capita+Consumption+of+Meats">increased ten-fold</a> from 4.6 kilograms per person in 1965 to 44.6 kilograms in 2012. </p>
<p>The retail price of chicken per kilogram has <a href="http://www.chicken.org.au/files/_system/Image/Graphs/Retail%20Price%20of%20Meat%20in%202010%20dollars.jpg?Production=Retail+Price+in+2010+Dollars">decreased steadily</a> in real terms from around A$9.67 in 1986 to A$5.67 in 2009. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMQrtLRjOV0">arrival of Kentucky Fried Chicken in Australia in 1968</a> coincided with rapid increases in consumption. Today, Australians consume <a href="http://www.chicken.org.au/files/_system/Image/Graphs/Chicken%20Meat%20Production%20-%20detailed.jpg?Production=Production">more than 600 million chickens per year</a>. </p>
<p>The vast majority is produced in intensive “broiler” farms. How does chicken production and consumption on such a scale affect the foodbowls on the outskirts of our cities? </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113513/original/image-20160302-25866-1twp1rj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113513/original/image-20160302-25866-1twp1rj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=448&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113513/original/image-20160302-25866-1twp1rj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=448&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113513/original/image-20160302-25866-1twp1rj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=448&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113513/original/image-20160302-25866-1twp1rj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=563&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113513/original/image-20160302-25866-1twp1rj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=563&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113513/original/image-20160302-25866-1twp1rj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=563&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australians consume over 600 million chickens each year, with the price of chicken having fallen steadily since the 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Butt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Intensive chicken farms need to be within about one hour of processing sites. Farms also need to be close to feed supplies and hatcheries, as they are run as highly integrated systems.</p>
<p>Partly because of this, the chicken meat industry in Victoria is concentrated within about 200 kilometres of Melbourne. Similar patterns occur in other Australian regions. </p>
<p>As the industry has sought efficiencies of scale, the size of farms has increased. Whereas farms of the 1970s might have housed 10,000 chickens, they now routinely hold 80,000 to more than one million chickens, producing five batches of chickens per year. Yet as producers have grown, the numbers of suitable urban fringe spaces – close enough to processing plants, but far enough from neighbours and sensitive land uses – are dwindling.</p>
<p>One reason is the growth in popularity of peri-urban areas to live in. “Counter-urbanisation” or “tree-changing” has been underway since the 1970s. Whether in Germany, the US or the Netherlands, it seems rural and peri-urban residents have little desire to live near a “<a href="https://saynomoolortchook.wordpress.com/">monster chicken factory</a>”. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02697459.2015.1028252">In a recent paper</a> we analysed 59 planning appeals related to broiler farms in Victoria between 1969 and 2013. Concerns about the farms have included odour, noise, dust, vermin, truck traffic, impacts on tourism, and water use and pollution.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112826/original/image-20160224-16425-1lijx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112826/original/image-20160224-16425-1lijx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112826/original/image-20160224-16425-1lijx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=381&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112826/original/image-20160224-16425-1lijx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=381&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112826/original/image-20160224-16425-1lijx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=381&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112826/original/image-20160224-16425-1lijx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=479&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112826/original/image-20160224-16425-1lijx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=479&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112826/original/image-20160224-16425-1lijx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=479&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The size of intensive chicken farm proposals has increased in Victoria since the 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Authors</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Broiler farm planning disputes appear to channel more intractable issues than odour control. It is possible that, on some level, having one million chickens <em>not</em> smell is unsettling in its own way. </p>
<p>As more chicken meat is produced, and in ever more technologically intensive ways, conflicts over farm applications inevitably unlock community disquiet about factory farming. The allowable forum for legitimate opposition, however, is narrow. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113978/original/image-20160307-17734-s8xbk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113978/original/image-20160307-17734-s8xbk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113978/original/image-20160307-17734-s8xbk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=572&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113978/original/image-20160307-17734-s8xbk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=572&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113978/original/image-20160307-17734-s8xbk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=572&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113978/original/image-20160307-17734-s8xbk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=718&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113978/original/image-20160307-17734-s8xbk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=718&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113978/original/image-20160307-17734-s8xbk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=718&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Images promoting chicken products are more likely to evoke rural scenes like the one above than remind us of the broiler farm (below).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/scotthessphoto/17083758332/in/photolist-4pgadE-6UvuL6-9w56Dj-6UvqPX-6Uvjd4-6Uzxk1-6UziVb-53Ro1j-6Uzmnh-6UvxCx-6Uviav-8Kr7WX-6Uvr2k-6Uzupm-53M1o6-wPruwd-53M6EZ-6UzkRJ-9GwgyH-6UvuvB-AwqoT2-C8zY48-6UzAr9-a3tVFZ-6UvtWp-6UvtfF-rZsTp5-xY83Pi-6UzzXG-5g53aU-6UzxwG-6UvhSD-ziqTyk-tgsKa5-6UvhPg-t2cahG-wyEHUS-m3aWw-vrokoL-uZhMXH-s2CJas-s2Lpz8-s2CJgu-rwho8p-tNAevG-tNAnus-uKBj4i-tNL3gB-uHhBHh-AEZDtn">flickr/Scott Hess</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113685/original/image-20160303-9496-96pibe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113685/original/image-20160303-9496-96pibe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113685/original/image-20160303-9496-96pibe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=596&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113685/original/image-20160303-9496-96pibe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=596&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113685/original/image-20160303-9496-96pibe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=596&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113685/original/image-20160303-9496-96pibe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=749&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113685/original/image-20160303-9496-96pibe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=749&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113685/original/image-20160303-9496-96pibe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=749&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ugacommunications/16555376156/in/photolist-rdWCxW-7e9T9Q-59gQRS-7e61Cg-7X8nb9-yj1yR-7e9TuE-faW5gV-7e9TmU-fbbfxy-fbbfP7-fbbmys-7e61Hg-faW67D-7DxN3c-5YHx2W-5LsWVn-7DxNbZ-5LxcK5-7DBAZj-5YDiD2-fbbjZj-faNp6B-8KdrXi-fgjG13-faMCmZ-7yxxN8-7yBkM5-8Xm3A8-fKAeWU-fKAeU1-eQniQY-faMCQn-7fieFX-4PfyWc-jQY6WZ-7yBkPm-gSfxum-7yBkRf-b3MobX-faW29M-8frnAx-fbbjyy-faW18D-fbbgWN-faW5CK-faVZMz-fbbm7C-7e614t-ebMEg5">flickr/Michael Czarick</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Intensive farming is often simply inconsistent with community expectations. The “unknowns” of industrialised agriculture are normally hidden from view in bucolic images on food packaging, and in the marketing of rural real estate as a “lifestyle” choice. Responses to the reality of broiler proposals – however technically well planned – sometimes seem rooted in the loss of this comforting, romanticised view. </p>
<p>In Victoria, the solution has been to regulate away the noise, smell and dust of a farm, mandate separation distances and even set aside areas with clear “rights to farm” and those with rights to “the good life”. The recent announcement of an inquiry in Victoria into the industry has a strong focus on resolving conflicts through siting and separation. </p>
<p>Yet the use of such an approach in Victoria has raised concerns about creating <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/vic/PPV/2013/148">“sterilised” regions</a> where no uses but industrial farms are permitted. Opponents to industrial farms also express concerns that proponents exploit loopholes and that a codified buffer distance privileges intensive farms rather than resolving conflicting land use issues. </p>
<p>On the other hand, less control arguably generates more conflict, as in parts of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13549830500203246">Canada</a> and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/cag.2005.27.1.45/full">Texas</a>. There, industrial, corporate-run farming operations dominate vast, generally lower socioeconomic areas. But as farms expand, divisive neighbourhood battles are still fought out. </p>
<p>Our research indicates that the use of buffer spaces around farms, guidelines and rights can achieve only so much. Despite the presence of clear guidelines, a recent proposal for a 1.2 million-bird farm in Baringhup, near Castlemaine, has led to more than two years of planning dispute and may result in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/baringhup-chicken-broiler-farms/7067956">Supreme Court action</a>. </p>
<p>Conflicts between opponents and proponents of intensive farming will continue in rural areas. Fanning the flames is the growing demand for low-priced chicken (and an ongoing <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/radio/hamish-and-andy-launch-war-on-nuggets-with-nugraid/news-story/149965fc085e5248be8d939c2ab6a24d">chicken nugget price “war”</a>). </p>
<p>Local governments and decision-makers in Australia remain under-resourced to deal with opposition to the increasing scale of broiler farms. By advocating for a new understanding of what a rural and an urban area “means”, planning is at the coal face for negotiating politically acceptable outcomes to such conflicts. Yet a look at the images used to market farm products reveals what an uphill struggle this is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54886/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Taylor has received funding from AHURI, the Henry Halloran Trust, and Carlton Connect. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Butt and Marco Amati do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As consumption has soared and prices have fallen, the realities of industrial chicken farming often clash with the values of people who live on the urban fringes where broiler farms are sited.Elizabeth Taylor, Vice Chancellor's Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, RMIT UniversityAndrew Butt, Senior Lecturer in Community Planning and Development, La Trobe UniversityMarco Amati, Associate Professor of International Planning, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/551562016-02-24T19:03:05Z2016-02-24T19:03:05ZUrban sprawl is threatening Sydney's foodbowl<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112649/original/image-20160223-16422-49oo0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sydney&#39;s farms on the urban fringe produce 10% of the city&#39;s fresh vegetables.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/3830023504/in/photolist-6QnMoZ-6QrV7L-6QnQae-6QnQs8-fPxGqz-6QrT6S-6QnP8P-c9BtAu-6QrShL-6QrTXm-6QrSy1-5h5BkV-5h5Exe-6QnLyn-6QnQCk-6QnMXz-eqv9Hn-5hioUu-6QnNHB-2Tpp7q-2Tpneo-6QrTEh-5hioRW-dV7c9n-6QrVPh-dV7c3i-dVcMq5-d3q7iW-odvEcC-6QrURb-akQmRa-6QnNT8-deZBmQ-dV5L28-9pqX16-cA7xnW-afUB7x-7Xzjvz-7XCy8u-9pqXxT-9pqXZx-dj7cyp-qEEA1P-pUTaZT-bHhgEn-ifXqaC-5h9UJL-9ptUHJ-85PVEP-ei7M5t">Alpha/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sydney loves to talk about food, and the housing market. But rarely do we talk about the threat that housing poses to the resilience of Sydney’s food system.</p>
<p>If we continue along the path we’re on, Sydney stands to lose more than <a href="http://www.sydneyfoodfutures.net/interactive-maps/">90% of its current fresh vegetable production</a>. Total food production could drop by 60% and the city’s supply of food from within the basin could drop from 20% of total food demand to a mere 6%.</p>
<p>Like most Australian cities, Sydney is facing an influx of people – <a href="http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/Plans-for-Your-Area/Sydney/A-Plan-for-Growing-Sydney">1.6 million new residents</a> are expected over the next 15 years. </p>
<p>Competing priorities for land are compounded by this growing population, as well as by planning laws that favour development over agriculture – not to mention a changing climate. Cities worldwide are facing the same issues as we try to feed a growing population with limited resources. </p>
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<h2>Protecting farmers</h2>
<p>Sydney’s fertile soils are being paved over at a rapid rate. Large portions of areas that currently grow Sydney’s fresh produce are earmarked for release for housing development.</p>
<p>Currently, the planning system does not prioritise agriculture as a land use, meaning urban sprawl into potential farmland continues relatively unchecked. Instead, planning tends to focus on whichever use has the greatest economic value. </p>
<p>In an overheated housing market such as Sydney’s, this tends to mean agricultural land is allowed to be rezoned for houses or other higher-value land uses.</p>
<p>As city land prices rise, more people are moving further out for a “<a href="http://www.wollondilly.nsw.gov.au/assets/PDF/Planning-and-Development/SPUN/20140701-Can-you-have-your-Chook-and-Eat-it-too-Peri-URban-COnference-2014-paper.pdf">tree change</a>”. Lower land prices on the city’s fringe allow families to purchase large homes and lots at a lower price than in the city. </p>
<p>But many of these new rural residents don’t like the early morning sound of tractors and the smell of manure on neighbouring farms, and make nuisance complaints to their local council. These complaints often result in tough operating restrictions being placed on farmers’ activities, such as limits on hours of operation and types of fertiliser that can be used.</p>
<p>These restrictions are introduced by councils to appease local residents and are in accordance with <a href="http://wollondilly.nsw.gov.au/assets/PDF/Planning-and-Development/SPUN/20150928-Sydney-Peri-Urban-Network-Issues-Paper.pdf">noise pollution laws designed for urban residential areas</a>. But they can have significant impacts on farm viability. In several instances, such restrictions have pushed marginal farms into the red, eventually forcing farmers off their land and out of the basin. </p>
<p>The New South Wales government is interested in taking steps to ameliorate this problem, as demonstrated through its recently tabled <a href="http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/resources/lup/legislation/right-to-farm-policy">Right to Farm policy</a>. This seeks to ensure that farmers’ right to operate their business is protected against nuisance complaints.</p>
<h2>Why growing food in Sydney is important</h2>
<p>There are enormous benefits to growing fresh food in the Sydney basin – and, indeed, near any city. Perishable foods such as Asian greens and eggs can be grown close to market, reducing spoilage, waste and <a href="http://www.foodmiles.com">food miles</a>, and buffering against spikes in fuel prices. </p>
<p>Agriculture and food processing are labour-intensive, providing significant local job opportunities. In fact, <a href="http://wollondilly.nsw.gov.au/assets/PDF/Planning-and-Development/SPUN/20150928-Sydney-Peri-Urban-Network-Issues-Paper.pdf">the benefit of Sydney’s agriculture to the economy is estimated at upwards of A$4.5 billion</a>. This includes jobs in storage, processing, transport and retail. </p>
<p>A changing climate will mean many of Australia’s important foodbowls, such as the Murray-Darling Basin, are likely to be more vulnerable to droughts and floods. Sydney’s higher rainfall and fertile soils will become even more suitable for growing food, meaning their importance to Sydney’s food supply will grow.</p>
<p>Farms on the fringes of our city will help buffer the city against the impacts of climate change, by cooling the city and helping wildlife move between habitat. </p>
<p>Food produced in close proximity to the city can also be fertilised by nutrients and organics in urban food waste, garden waste and wastewater. Accounting for these sources, Sydney actually has <a href="http://www.p-futurescities.net/sydney-australia/#MappingSydney">15 times more phosphorus supply than agricultural demand</a>. That means local food systems can better buffer against the growing global threat of <a href="http://phosphorusfutures.net/the-phosphorus-challenge/the-story-of-phosphorus-8-reasons-why-we-need-to-rethink-the-management-of-phosphorus-resources-in-the-global-food-system/">phosphorus fertiliser scarcity</a>, a threat that could lead to further fertiliser price spikes and supply disruptions.</p>
<p>Sydney’s farms also help buffer the city against disruptions to food supply. For example, if a bushfire or fuel shortage cut transport routes into Sydney, the city would have only <a href="http://www.wollondilly.nsw.gov.au/assets/PDF/Planning-and-Development/SPUN/20150901-Agri-Reference-Group-Response-June-2013-to-Draft-Metropolitan-Strategy-Review.pdf">two days’ stock of fresh produce</a>.</p>
<p>Our research shows that in the face of dramatically increasing population, Sydney stands to lose these benefits.</p>
<p>A similar <a href="http://www.ecoinnovationlab.com/project_content/foodprint-melbourne/">study in Melbourne</a> found their city’s foodbowl could <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-feed-growing-cities-we-need-to-stop-urban-sprawl-eating-up-our-food-supply-49651">plummet from meeting 41% of Melburnians’ food demand to 20%</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike Melbourne, Sydney is geographically constrained by mountains on one side and ocean on the other, meaning there is nowhere for agricultural production in the basin to go. Our agricultural production is literally being chased to the hills – and this at a time when we face the challenge of feeding over a million extra mouths.</p>
<p>We’ve <a href="http://www.sydneyfoodfutures.net/interactive-maps">mapped Sydney’s current and future food production</a>. The pink areas of the images below are areas where food is produced. As the maps indicate, the areas producing food in 2031 will dramatically decrease if we continue along the path we’re on. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112641/original/image-20160223-29156-w73069.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112641/original/image-20160223-29156-w73069.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112641/original/image-20160223-29156-w73069.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=342&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112641/original/image-20160223-29156-w73069.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=342&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112641/original/image-20160223-29156-w73069.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=342&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112641/original/image-20160223-29156-w73069.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=429&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112641/original/image-20160223-29156-w73069.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=429&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112641/original/image-20160223-29156-w73069.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=429&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sydney’s peri-urban farms produce 20% of the city’s food supply.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Institute for Sustainable Futures UTS</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112643/original/image-20160223-16416-sbgwc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112643/original/image-20160223-16416-sbgwc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112643/original/image-20160223-16416-sbgwc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=342&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112643/original/image-20160223-16416-sbgwc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=342&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112643/original/image-20160223-16416-sbgwc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=342&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112643/original/image-20160223-16416-sbgwc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=429&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112643/original/image-20160223-16416-sbgwc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=429&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112643/original/image-20160223-16416-sbgwc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=429&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">If we allowed unchecked urban sprawl, Sydney’s farms might produce only 6% of the city’s food supply.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Institute for Sustainable Futures UTS</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A better food future</h2>
<p>Our city plans need to value and better protect agriculture from urban sprawl. Planners need to make decisions based on evidence to balance competing land uses.</p>
<p>These decisions need to take account of the full suite of values and benefits we gain from Sydney farmers, not just the economic gains we stand to achieve by converting the land to houses. </p>
<p>Farmers in the basin need better commercial conditions, a fair price for commodities, land security and support from other residents.</p>
<p>Sydneysiders need access to affordable housing, jobs and infrastructure. </p>
<p>But, equally, they need access to nutritious and affordable food, reversing the high rate of obesity and diabetes, and “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-08/food-deserts-have-serious-consequences-for-residents-experts/6605230">food deserts</a>” without access to groceries particularly prevalent in Western Sydney.</p>
<p>Through increased awareness and accessibility, food shoppers can also support local food producers, increasing the resilience of Sydney’s food system and simultaneously reducing the environmental footprint of food.</p>
<p>However, strategic policies and plans are needed to ensure that agriculture is valued and prioritised as an important land use and economic activity within our city, to ensure that buying local food is a choice that consumers can make in future. </p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.sydneyfoodfutures.net">Read more at Sydney’s Food Futures</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dana Cordell received funding for this project from the Building Resilience to Climate Change Grant, through Local Government NSW, the Office of Environment and Heritage and the NSW Environment Trust. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brent Jacobs received funding for this project from the Building Resilience to Climate Change Grants, through Local Government NSW, the Office of Environment and Heritage and the NSW Environment Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The researchers received funding for this project from the Building Resilience to Climate Change Grant, through Local Government NSW, the Office of Environment and Heritage and the NSW Environment Trust. </span></em></p>Farms on Sydney's fringes supply 20% of the city's food. That could drop by more than half if urban sprawl isn't kept in check.Dana Cordell, Research Principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyBrent Jacobs, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyLaura Wynne, Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549432016-02-19T16:39:13Z2016-02-19T16:39:13ZMalheur occupation is over, but the war for America's public lands rages on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112011/original/image-20160218-1233-1bb21vm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Author Peter Walker meets with Robert &#39;LaVoy&#39; Finicum at the occupied Malheur National Wildlife refuge on January 20.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Occupier Jason Patrick</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: University of Oregon geography professor Peter Walker has just returned from Harney County, Oregon, where armed occupiers took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. He spent several weeks attending community meetings and watching the events unfold, which he describes here.</em></p>
<p>On January 2, 2016, some 300 local citizens and outside militia members <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/">marched in Harney County, Oregon</a>, to protest the resentencing for arson of local father-and-son ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond. </p>
<p>At stake was far more than the fate of the Hammonds. In the works was nothing less than an armed insurrection against virtually all federal ownership of land in the United States – and even against the very existence of the federal government as we know it. Had the almost surreally audacious plan succeeded, communities and economies across the American West, and the entire country, would have been changed profoundly.</p>
<p>As a researcher in the politics of public land, I went to Harney County to see what was going on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/peter.walker.31542">firsthand</a>. Having spent five weeks going back and forth between my home and the community, I’m convinced that the Malheur occupation was part of a much larger, well-funded and politically connected movement to transfer public lands to private owners. I’m also convinced it is not over, and we must expect to see more violent attempts to seize public land in the future.</p>
<h2>The spark</h2>
<p>Among the protesters in Harney County that early January day were a small number of anti-federal government activists who had been involved in the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/16/us/cliven-bundy-bail-hearing-oregon/">April 2014 armed standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada</a>, between rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government over Bundy’s nonpayment of fees for grazing on federal land. </p>
<p>Bundy and his supporters had in effect declared war on the federal government by pointing guns at Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees to resist the removal of his cattle from federal land. For almost two years it appeared Bundy had won (he was <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/02/nevada_rancher_cliven_bundy_de.html">arrested</a> on February 10 in Portland, Oregon, while on his way to support the Malheur occupation). </p>
<p>Taking inspiration from that perceived success, a small splinter group among the protesters hoped to launch a larger-scale rebellion. The group would later <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqL9NGRTGss">state openly</a> that they intended to make Harney County the first “constitutional” county in America – by which they meant a county where the federal government owns almost no land and has almost no direct authority. Simply put, the goal was to overthrow the federal government of the United States as we know it, through force of arms. </p>
<p>What happened next was reported extensively by journalists and social media to a national and international audience riveted by what at times seemed a bizarre spectacle. Roughly a dozen heavily armed men left the protest in the city of Burns (the seat of Harney County) and seized the then-closed headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. </p>
<h2>The case for rebellion</h2>
<p>The Malheur Refuge is an expanse of 187,757 acres designated in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect an astonishing variety of birds, including sandhill cranes, sage grouse, snow geese, tundra swans, ducks, grebes, ibises, egrets and pelicans – to name a few. The refuge provides opportunities for bird watching, hunting and grazing for local ranchers’ cattle, and is a key source of tourist revenue for the local economy. It is a critically important place for millions of migratory birds to rest and feed on their journey along the Pacific Flyway.</p>
<p>With the arrival of armed men from Nevada, Arizona, Montana and Idaho (none of the leaders were local, or even from Oregon), the Malheur Refuge was given a profoundly different role. It became center stage for the latest act in the long-running <a href="https://kuecprd.ku.edu/%7Eupress/cgi-bin/978-0-7006-1895-8.html">Sagebrush Rebellion</a> — a sometimes violent <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-twisted-roots-of-u-s-land-policy-in-the-west-52740">political movement with roots in the 1970s and 1980s</a> that aims to transfer federal land to private ownership. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Occupiers Ammon and Ryan Bundy ask Harney County Ranchers whether they will ‘live free or be a slave?’ just before imploring Harney County ranchers to break their BLM grazing leases. Taken in Crane, Oregon, on January 18.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The core leaders of the group were veterans of the 2014 armed standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada, led by Cliven Bundy, including his sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, Arizona rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum and Montana militant Ryan Payne. While the occupiers at first spoke of a desire to see the sentences of Dwight and Steven Hammond overturned, in time they declared a much broader <a href="http://www.pacificpatriotsnetwork.com/downloads/Proposed%20Resoulition%20of%20Peacful%20Occupation%20-%20Malheur%20National%20Wildlife%20Refuge.pdf">agenda</a> – one consistent with the goals of national right wing groups that seek the handover of federal land to private ownership. These groups also seek the “<a href="http://krisannehall.com/nullification-the-duty-and-right-of-the-states-pt-1/">nullification</a>” of federal authority broadly and the establishment of so-called “constitutional” sheriffs who <a href="http://www.politicalresearch.org/2013/11/22/profiles-on-the-right-constitutional-sheriffs-and-peace-officers-association/#sthash.gsHC3qo4.dpbs">claim authority to keep federal authorities out of their counties</a>. </p>
<p>While the press often reported on the groups’ stated goals of freeing the Hammonds and handing over land in the Malheur Refuge to private owners, the occupiers’ goals were in fact far more ambitious. </p>
<p>At a community meeting that I attended near the town of Crane, Oregon, on January 18, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, LaVoy Finicum and Ryan Payne presented their grand vision in no uncertain terms. In the audience were roughly 30 local ranchers. The Bundy group gave a lengthy presentation of their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution in which they claimed the federal government has essentially no authority beyond the powers specifically enumerated in the verbatim text of the Constitution, and that the federal government cannot own land outside Washington, D.C. except with the consent of the states. </p>
<p>Based on this interpretation, the Bundys, Finicum and Payne told local ranchers that they had no obligation to pay fees for grazing on federal land because, in their view, federal ownership of land is unconstitutional. The group implored the Harney County ranchers in the meeting to tear up their grazing leases.</p>
<p>Their goal, ultimately, was to wrest virtually all power from the federal government through armed action in the name of “We The People.” Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum said that he and Cliven Bundy were the only ranchers to have faced off against the federal government by refusing to pay grazing fees and that they had succeeded by using their Second Amendment right to bear arms – arms that they had literally pointed directly at federal employees. </p>
<p>Harney County ranchers at the meeting complained that the occupiers were asking too much – for example, if ranchers tear up their grazing leases, then the value of their former grazing rights is subtracted from their net worth and they cannot borrow against it. And none welcomed an armed standoff with federal authorities. </p>
<p>Finicum responded that his group was there to defend the ranchers from federal authorities by force of arms. Finicum insisted that if only half a dozen ranchers in the room stood together, with armed protection by the Bundy militants, they could defeat the United States government and start a national movement that would spread like wildfire. Revealing his frustration at the reluctance of the assembled ranchers to join the revolution, Finicum practically begged, saying, “If not now, when? If not here, where? If not us, who?”</p>
<h2>Tearing up grazing leases</h2>
<p>Not a single rancher from Harney County or the state of Oregon was persuaded. On Saturday, January 23, the occupiers <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/ostandoff/2016/01/post_1.html">held a ceremony</a> at the Malheur Refuge that symbolically represented the fruits of their revolutionary labors: in front of TV cameras and newspaper and radio reporters, a single rancher, from 1,300 miles away in New Mexico, stood beside Ryan Bundy and <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ec4fbc27f67a429982b500c539fe9c20/armed-group-plans-event-renounce-federal-land-policy">pledged to break his BLM lease</a>. </p>
<p>The New Mexico rancher, Adrian Sewell, had a violent criminal past that included <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/post_1.html">assault with an ax</a>. Another eight ranchers made similar commitments – all in Utah, where the movement to privatize public land is <a href="http://www.capitalpress.com/Nation_World/Nation/20160211/federal-land-ownership-battle-heads-for-court">particularly strong</a>. The Bundy group claimed, without presenting any evidence, that other ranchers would soon make the pledge to tear up their grazing leases, igniting a national movement. Three days later, the Bundys and Payne were arrested and <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/bundys_in_custody_one_militant.html">Finicum was killed, according to reports, after resisting arrest by state police</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harney County rancher Scott Franklin, left, tells Ammon and Ryan Bundy that they are asking for too much and disputes their political theory that the federal government has no constitutional governing authority in western states. Taken in Crane, Oregon, on January 18.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Harney County’s ranchers were not the only ones to reject the Bundy group’s radical anti-federal agenda. </p>
<p>It is important to understand that for virtually all Harney County residents, the rally in Burns on January 2 was about the sentencing of the Hammonds – not about opposing federal ownership of land and certainly not about turning over the Malheur Refuge to private ownership. </p>
<p>Dwight and Steven Hammond were not universally well-liked in the community, and there was little dispute that they had committed crimes. But Harney County is a very close-knit community that takes care of its own. For the community, the rally was about supporting neighbors in need and redressing what they considered to be the Hammonds’ inappropriate sentences; it was not about any <a href="http://koin.com/2016/01/02/anti-govt-protesters-expected-in-burns-saturday/">broader political agenda</a>. </p>
<p>Later, at a community meeting on January 19, when the Bundy group arrived unexpectedly (causing much tension), some community members looked Bundy straight in the eye and accused him of taking advantage of the community’s distress about the Hammonds’ sentences to push a different agenda. Quietly and <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/bundy_militia_leader_plotted_o.html">behind the scenes</a>, even militia leaders <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/armed-takeover-oregon_us_568abc3ce4b0b958f65c4fa8">advised</a> the Bundys against using the community’s anger over the Hammonds’ sentences to create an armed standoff similar to the one led by Cliven Bundy in Nevada two years earlier.</p>
<h2>Community opposition</h2>
<p>After the Bundys seized the Malheur Refuge, it quickly became clear why the Bundys might have been wise to heed the militia leaders’ advice against an armed occupation. </p>
<p>The overwhelming majority of Harney County citizens were clearly opposed to the occupation and angry that their peaceful rally for the Hammonds had been hijacked to launch a violent campaign in pursuit of a broader agenda. </p>
<p>Even community members generally sympathetic to the Bundys’ goals were incensed that outsiders from afar were now telling them how to run their county and what to do with local land. No one failed to note the hypocrisy that outsiders claiming to cherish local control were now telling the community what to do. One resident whom I spoke with estimated that 97 percent of the community opposed the Bundys’ methods and goals.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A billboard in Harney County during the Malheur Occupation reflected most locals’ unhappiness with the occupiers from outside the county.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The community’s opposition became very clear at community meetings, where Harney County residents almost unanimously voted to request that the occupiers leave. At one community meeting, when almost the entire leadership of the Bundy group arrived unexpectedly, citizens of Harney County stood on their feet, pointed fingers at the Bundys and chanted “Go home! Go home! Go home!” </p>
<p>When asked about the opposition by the community, the occupiers claimed that the “majority” of local people supported them but provided no evidence to support the claim. All <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/harney-county-residents-speak-out-on-occupation/">objective observers agreed</a>: from the beginning, the community strongly rejected the occupation. Over time, the mood escalated from indignation to intense anger that an outside group claiming to speak for the county was ignoring repeated requests to leave. The community posted a large billboard on the main highway that read, “We are Harney County. We have our own voice.”</p>
<h2>Start of something?</h2>
<p>In the end, the unwillingness of the community to rally to the Bundys’ side was probably the group’s undoing. Had the community come to the aid of the occupiers at the Malheur Refuge in large numbers, as the Bundys seemed to have been counting on, it would have been much more difficult for law enforcement to bring about a mostly peaceful end. </p>
<p>Many believe the conflagration and mass causalities that resulted a generation earlier when law enforcement moved against a <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/federal-agents-raid-the-branch-davidian-compound-in-waco-texas">religious sect in Waco, Texas</a>, had made federal authorities extremely wary of using potentially lethal force. Had the Bundys succeeded in bringing large numbers of local people into the occupation of the Malheur Refuge, they might well have blocked law enforcement and set off a national wave of similar occupations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At a memorial for killed occupier LaVoy Finicum, there were many guns openly displayed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, on February 11, after 41 days of armed occupation, all the occupiers had fled or were arrested, and one was killed in a confrontation with police. Not a day was shaved off the Hammonds’ sentences, and not an acre of federal land was privatized. The sheriff of Harney County is still the kind recognized by established law, not a so-called “constitutional” sheriff. And the Harney County judge and commissioners – whom the Bundys demanded be removed – are still in charge. By the measure of its own stated goals, the Bundy occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was a dismal failure.</p>
<p>There are no guarantees, however, that similar attacks on the federal government will not happen in the future. In fact there is every reason to believe they will. </p>
<p>The national movement to transfer federal land to private ownership (including groups with direct ties to the Bundy family) remains as active as ever, and appears to have access to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/11/3748602/koch-brothers-funding-bundy-agenda/">enormous resources</a> from wealthy conservative supporters with interests in oil, gas and coal development. Militia groups are active, angry and eager for a win.</p>
<p>Those who value public lands – for economic, environmental, recreational and aesthetic values – owe a debt of gratitude to Harney County. A violent branch of the Sagebrush Rebellion came to town in Harney County, and the community told it to go away. </p>
<p>This would-be revolution proved that geography matters: the people of Harney County are not the people of Bunkerville, Nevada – and on the whole they are not interested in overthrowing the federal government. In fact, Harney County is a recognized national leader in <a href="http://www.fws.gov/endangered/map/ESA_success_stories/OR/OR_story4/index.html">collaborative efforts</a> between local land users, conservationists and federal natural resource agencies designed precisely to avoid unnecessary hardships to local communities that can set off conflicts.</p>
<p>But other communities in the American West may be more welcoming to radical action, and those who want to see public land handed over to private interests are certain to seek them out. The war for western lands goes on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54943/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A geography professor reports from the front lines of the Malheur occupation. Despite strong local opposition to occupiers, he foresees more conflicts to come.Peter Walker, Professor of Geography, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.